Political role of Juan Carlos
I

The death of Franco elevated Don Juan Carlos de Borbón to the
throne. Until Franco’s death, Juan Carlos had remained in the
background and seemed to follow the dictator’s plans of appointing
him his successor as Head of State and later King of Spain. Once in
power as King of Spain, Juan Carlos facilitated the
development of the current political system, as his father, Don Juan de Borbón, had advocated since
1946.

Nevertheless, the transition proved challenging, as the spectre
of the Civil
War (1936-1939) still haunted Spain. Francoists on the extreme
right enjoyed considerable support
within the Spanish
Army, and people of the left distrusted a king who owed his
position to Franco.

The realization of the democratic project required that the
leftist opposition restrain its own most radical elements from
provocation, and that the army refrain from intervening in the
political process on behalf of Francoist elements within the
existing government.

Juan Carlos began his reign without leaving the confines of
Franco's legal system. As such, he swore fidelity to the Principles
of the Movimiento
Nacional, the sole legal party of the Franco era; took
possession of the crown
before the Francoist Cortes Generales; and respected the Ley Orgánica del
Estado (Organic Law of the State) for the appointment of
his first head of government. Only in his
speech before the Cortes did he indicate his support for a
transformation of the Spanish political system.

First
government of the Monarchy (January-July 1976)

The first government of Juan Carlos was presided over by Carlos
Arias Navarro. The King made this appointment in accordance
with the guidelines of the 1966 Ley Orgánica del Estado
("Organic Law of the State"): the Consejo del Reino
("Council of the Kingdom") proposed a list of three candidates, and
from among these the King chose Arias Navarro.

The appointment of Arias Navarro did not foretell large
political transformations. Nevertheless, the new government
included three individuals who had once collaborated with Franco's
state but had now become dedicated supporters of the movement
toward a democratic state: José María de Areilza, a member
of Don Juan's Privy Council, was given the portfolio of Foreign
Affairs, whilst the diplomat Antonio Garrigues y Díaz Cañabate
was named Minister of
Justice, and Manuel Fraga Iribarne was
appointed Interior Minister (Ministro de
Gobernación). However, to maintain political balance, the
Vice-Chairman for Defense was an unconditionally pro-Franco
military man: General Fernando de Santiago.

Soon, two other officials gained prominence within the movement.
Torcuato
Fernández Miranda, a university professor from the ranks of the
Movimiento was the president of both the Cortes and the
Council of the Kingdom. Adolfo Suárez, who also started his
career within the Movimiento, held the position of
Secretary-General of the Movimiento, with the rank of
minister.

The new government faced many difficulties. Unrest was on the
increase, with frequent calls for amnesty. Meanwhile, in the Basque Country,
tensions mounted steadily. ETA
continued its attacks and had popular support for many of its
actions. A general
strike in Vitoria at the beginning of March 1976
lasted for several days. When street protests became violent,
police reprisals resulted in the deaths of three people and a loss
of prestige for Minister Fraga, already reputed to be
heavy-handed.

Meanwhile, the political opposition steadfastly called for the
dismantling of the Francoist regime as soon as possible. Opposition
forces united in March 1976, forming a new organization, the
Coordinación Democrática, which declared that it would not
accept any political system connected with the old Francoist order.
Arias Navarro intended only small changes to the Francoist system,
but some of his ministers had already anticipated and embraced the
prospect of greater change.

José María de Areilza accompanied the King on a trip to the
United States in June 1976, and declared complete support for the
implementation of a democratic system in Spain. Adolfo Suárez
maintained frequent contacts with moderate members of the
opposition to plan the first stages of the transition. Also, the
King himself, during the trip to the United States, plainly
declared that he favored the re-establishment of democracy in
Spain. Finally, in July, as Prime Minister Arias Navarro continued
to delay reform and object to democratization, Juan
Carlos ordered his resignation.

First government of Adolfo Suárez (July 1976 - June
1977)

Fernández Miranda, as president of the Council of the Kingdom,
obtained Adolfo Suárez’s placement on the new list of three
candidates for head of the
government. The king chose Suárez because he felt he would be
able to meet the challenge of the difficult political process that
lay ahead: persuading the Cortes (Spanish parliament), which was
composed of installed Francoist politicians, to dismantle Franco’s
system. In this manner he would formally act within the Francoist
legal system and thus avoid the prospect of military intervention
in the political process.

Adolfo Suárez quickly presented a clear political program based
on two points:

The development of a Law for Political Reform that,
once approved by the Cortes and the Spanish public in a referendum, would open
the constituent process for creating a liberal democracy in Spain.

A call for democratic elections in June 1977 in order to elect
a Cortes that would be charged with drawing up a new democratic constitution.

This program was clear and unequivocal, but its realization
tested the political capacity of Suárez. He had to convince both
the opposition to participate in his plan and the army to allow the
process to run uninterrupted, and at the same time needed to bring
under control the situation in the Basque Country.

Despite these challenges, Suárez's project was carried out
without delay between July 1976 and June 1977. In this short period
of time Adolfo Suárez had to act on many fronts to achieve his
aims.

Advertisements

The
Law for Political Reform

The draft of the Law for Political Reform (Ley para la
Reforma Política) was written by Torcuato Fernández-Miranda,
speaker of the Cortes, who handed it over to the Suárez government
in July 1976. The project was approved by the Suarez Government in
September 1976.[1] To open
the door to parliamentary democracy in Spain, this legislation
could not simply create a new political system by eliminating the
obstacles put in place by the Franco regime against democracy: it
had to liquidate the Francoist system through the Francoist Cortes
itself. Throughout the month of November the Cortes, under the able
presidency of Fernández Miranda, debated this law, which it
ultimately approved with 425 votes in favor, 59 against, and 13
abstentions.

The Suárez government sought to gain further legitimacy for the
changes through a popular referendum. On 15 December 1976, with a
77.72% participation rate, 94% of voters indicated their support
for the changes. From this moment, it was possible to begin the
electoral process (the second part of the Suárez program), which
would serve to elect the deputies of the Constituent
Cortes, the body that was to be responsible for creating a
democratic constitution.

With this part of his plan fulfilled, Suárez had to resolve a
crucial issue: should he include the opposition groups who had not
participated in the beginning of the transition? Suárez also had to
deal with another delicate issue: coming to terms with the
anti-Francoist opposition.

Relations
of the Suárez government with the opposition

Suárez adopted a series of measured policies to add credibility
to his project. In July 1976 he issued a partial political amnesty,
freeing 400 prisoners. He extended this in March 1977, and finally
granted a blanket amnesty in May of the same year. In December 1976
the Tribunal de Orden Público (TOP), a sort of Francoist secret police, was
dissolved. In March 1977, the right to strike was legalized, with the right to
unionize being
granted the following month. Also in March a new electoral law
(Ley Electoral) introduced the necessary framework for
Spain's electoral system to be brought into accord with those of
other countries that were liberalparliamentary democracies.

Through these and other measures of government, Suárez complied
with the conditions that the opposition groups had first demanded
in 1974. These opposition forces had met in November 1976 in order
to create a platform of democratic organizations.

Suárez had initiated political contact with the opposition by
meeting with Felipe González, secretary general of the PSOE, in August 1976.
The positive attitude of the socialist leader gave further support
for Suárez to carry forward his political project, but everyone
clearly perceived that the big problem for the political
normalization of the country would be the legalization of the Communist Party of Spain
(Partido Comunista de España or PCE), which had, at the
time, more activists and was more organized than any other group in
the political opposition. However, in a meeting between Suárez and
the most important military leaders in September, the officers
strongly declared opposition to the legalization of the PCE.

The PCE, for its part, acted ever more publicly to express its
opinions. According to the Communists, the Law for Political Reform
was anti-democratic, and, moreover, the elections for the
Constituent Cortes should be called by a provisional government
that formed part of the political forces of the opposition. The
opposition did not show any enthusiasm for the Law for Political
Reform. Suárez had to risk even more in order to involve the
opposition forces in his plan.

In December 1976, the PSOE celebrated its 27th Congress in Madrid, and began to disassociate
itself from the demands of the PCE, affirming that it would
participate in the next call for elections for the Constituent
Cortes. In the beginning of 1977, the year of the elections, Suárez
decided to confront the problem of legalizing the PCE. After the
public indignation lifted by the Massacre of Atocha in January
1977 against trade-unionists and Communists, Suárez decided to talk
with PCE secretary general Santiago Carrillo in February.
Carrillo's willingness to collaborate without prior demands and his
offer of a "social pact" for the period after the elections pushed
Suárez to take the riskiest step of the transition: the
legalization of the PCE in April 1977. However, throughout this
critical period the government began a strategy of providing
greater institutional space to the UGT Socialist union in
comparison to the then Communist oriented CCOO. The manner in which
a unified trade union was strategically countered is an important
feature of the Spanish transition as it limited radical opposition
and created the basis for a fractured industrial relations
system.

Relations
of the Suárez government with the army

Adolfo Suárez knew well that the "Búnker"—a group of hard-line Francoists led by
José Antonio Girón and Blas Piñar, using
the newspapers El
Alcázar and Arriba as their mouthpieces— had close
contacts with officials in the army and exercised influence over
important sectors of the military. These forces could constitute an
insurmountable obstacle if they brought about military intervention
against political reform.

To resolve the issue, Suárez intended to support himself with a
liberal group within the military, centered on General Díez
Alegría. Suárez decided to give the members of this group the
positions of authority with the most responsibility. The most
notable personality of this faction within the army was General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado. But
in July 1976, the Vice President for Defense Affairs was General
Fernando de Santiago, a member of a hardline group within the army.
De Santiago had shown his restlessness before, during the first
amnesty in July 1976. He had opposed the law granting the right to
unionize. Suárez dismissed Fernando de Santiago and nominated
instead Gutiérrez Mellado. This confrontation with General de
Santiago caused a large part of the army to oppose Suárez, an
opposition that further intensified when the PCE was legalized.

Meanwhile, Gutiérrez Mellado promoted officials who supported
political reform and removed those commanders of security forces
(Policía Armada and the Guardia Civil) who seemed to support
preserving the Francoist regime.

Suárez wanted to demonstrate to the army that the political
normalization of the country meant neither anarchy nor revolution. In this, he counted on the
collaboration of Santiago Carrillo, but he could in no way count on
the collaboration of terrorist groups.

Resurgence of terrorist
activity

The Basque Country remained, for the better part of this period,
in a state of political turbulence. Suárez granted a multi-stage
amnesty, but the confrontations continued between police and
protesters. ETA, which in the summer
of 1976 seemed open to a limited truce, resumed armed confrontation
again in October ; 1978–1980 would be ETA's three deadliest
years ever.[2] But it
was between December 1976 and January 1977 when a series of attacks
brought about a situation of high tension in Spain.

The Maoist GRAPO (Grupos de Resistencia
Antifascista Primero de Octubre) began its armed struggle by
bombing public locations, and then continued with the kidnapping of
two important figures of the regime: the President of the Council
of the State José María de Oriol, and General Villaescusa,
President of the Superior Council of the Military Justice. From the
right, during these kidnappings, members of the neo-fascist
Alianza Apostólica Anticomunista murdered six members of
the PCE, five of them labor lawyers, in an office on Atocha Street in Madrid in January
1977.

In the midst of these provocations, Suárez convened his first
meeting with a significant number of opposition leaders, who
published a condemnation of terrorism and gave their support to
Suárez's actions. During this turbulent time, the Búnker
capitalized on the instability and declared that the country was on
the brink of chaos.

Despite the increased violence, elections for the Constituent
Cortes were carried out in June 1977.

First
elections and the draft of the Constitution

Political posters in an exhibition celebrating 20 years of the
Spanish Constitution of 1978.

The elections that were held on June 15, 1977, confirmed the
existence of four important political forces at the national level.
The votes broke down in the following manner:

With the success of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV-Partido
Nacionalista Vasco) and the Democratic Pact for Catalonia
(PDC-Pacte Democrátic per Catalunya) in their respective
regions, nationalist
parties also began to show their political strength in these
elections.

More political posters in the same exhibition.

The Cortes began to draft a constitution in the summer of 1977.
In 1978 the Moncloa Pact was
passed: an agreement amongst politicians, political parties, and
trade unions to plan how to operate the economy during the
transition. The Spanish Constitution of
1978 went on to be approved in a referendum on the December 6,
1978.

Governments of the UCD

Antonio Tejero, breaking into the Congress of Deputies 23 February
1981, attempting a coup. Below to the right is the defense minister
Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado.

The government spent much of its time from 1979 working to hold
together the many tendencies within the party itself, as well as
their coalitions. In 1980, the Suárez government had for the most
part accomplished its goals of transition to democracy and lacked a
further clear agenda. Many UCD members were fairly conservative and
did not want further change. For example, a bill to legalize divorce caused much dissension
inside the UCD, in spite of being supported by the majority of the
populace. The UCD coalition fell apart.

The clashes among the several tendencies inside the party eroded
Suárez's authority and his role as leader. The tension exploded in
1981: Suárez resigned as the head of government, and Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo was appointed, first
to lead the new cabinet and later to the presidency of the UCD; social democrats led by Francisco Fernández Ordóñez
defected from the coalition.

While the democratic normalization had succeeded in convincing
ETA
(pm), the "political-military" faction of ETA, to abandon arms
and enter parliamentary politics, it did not stop the continuation
of terrorist attacks by ETA (m) ("ETA Military"; later simply
"ETA"), and, to a lesser extent, by GRAPO. Meanwhile, restlessness
in various sections of the armed forces created fear of an
impending military coup. The attempted coup known as
23-F, in which Lieutenant Colonel
Antonio Tejero
led an occupation by a group of Guardia Civil of the Congress
of Deputies on the afternoon of 23 February 1981 failed, but
demonstrated the existence of insurrectionary elements within the
army.

The PSOE
in government

Calvo Sotelo dissolved parliament and called elections for
October 1982. In the 1979 election the UCD had achieved a
plurality, but in 1982 it suffered a spectacular defeat. The
elections gave an absolute majority to the PSOE, which had already
spent many years preparing its image of an alternative
government.

In the 28th Congress of the PSOE (May 1979), secretary-general
Felipe González resigned rather than ally with the strong
revolutionary elements that seemed to dominate the party. A special
congress was called that September, and realigned the party along
more moderate lines, renouncing Marxism and allowing González to take charge
once more.

Throughout 1982, the PSOE confirmed its moderate orientation and
brought in the social democrats who had just broken from the
UCD.

Winning an absolute majority in parliament in two consecutive
elections (1982 and 1986), and exactly half the seats in 1989,
allowed the PSOE to legislate and govern without establishing pacts
with the other parliamentary political forces. In this way, the
PSOE could make laws to achieve the goals of its political program,
"el cambio" ("the change"). At the same time, the PSOE led
many local and regional administrations. This comfortable political
majority allowed the PSOE to give the country a long period of
tranquility and stability, after the intense years of the
transition.